On a winter day in 1903, in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, two unknown brothers from Ohio changed history. But it would take the world some time to believe what had happened: the age of flight had begun, with the first heavier-than-air, powered machine carrying a pilot. Who were these men and how was it that they achieved what they did? Far more than a couple of unschooled Dayton bicycle mechanics who happened to hit on success, they were men...

Strap yourself into the cockpit and fly along with daring U.S. airmen as they attempt the impossible and change the course of aviation history. Today, few know about the first flight around the world or the men who flew it, though it remains one of aviation's most important milestones. Three years before Lindbergh's transatlantic flight, eight U.S. aviators boarded four Douglas World Cruisers in a race with five other countries to complete the first...

Reclaiming one of the most important moments in American aviation history, this incredible, untold story recounts the transcontinental air race of October 1919, which riveted a nation as the aviators pioneered the first coast-to-coast air route, despite much drama and tragedy.

Explores the life-risking rivalry between the Wright Brothers and machinist Glenn Hammond Curtiss, assessing how their patent war shaped early aviation and ultimately cost one of the men his life.

Presents the lives and accomplishments of the Wright brothers, high school dropouts from Dayton, Ohio, who started out repairing bicycles and went on to build and fly the first successful airplane.

The Wright brothers have long received the lion's share of credit for inventing the airplane. But a California scientist succeeded in flying gliders twenty years before the Wright's powered flights at Kitty Hawk in 1903. Quest for Flight reveals the amazing accomplishments of John J. Montgomery, a prolific inventor who piloted the glider he designed in 1883 in the first controlled flights of a heavier-than-air craft in the Western Hemisphere. Re-examining...

"The trans-Atlantic air race of 1927 and the flight that made Charles Lindbergh a hero. The race to make the first nonstop flight between the New York and Paris attracted some of the most famous and seasoned aviators of the day, yet it was the young and lesser known Charles Lindbergh who won the $25,000 Orteig Prize in 1927 for his history-making solo flight in the Spirit of St. Louis. Drawing on many previously overlooked sources, Bak offers a fresh...

"In the years between World War I and World War II, aviation fever was everywhere, including among Black Americans. But what hope did a Black person have of learning to fly in a country constricted by prejudice and Jim Crow laws, where Black aviators like Bessie Coleman had to move to France to earn their wings? American Wings follows a group of determined Black Americans: Cornelius Coffey and Johnny Robinson, skilled auto mechanics; Janet Harmon...

Explores "the saga of three extraordinary aviators--Charles Lindbergh, Eddie Rickenbacker, and Jimmy Doolittle--and how they redefine heroism through their genius, daring, and uncommon courage"--